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tv   Tonight From Washington  CSPAN  November 1, 2012 8:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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general ray odierno talks about
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how the military is preparing for the future. he discussed the challenge of maintaining his armies readiness for smaller troop levels and a shift out of iraq and afghanistan. the center for strategic and international studies hosted this hour-long event. [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen. [inaudible] the auditorium had a podium. >> the microphone is not on. [laughter] >> the command equipment is really difficult. welcome to the center for international studies.
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good morning and welcome to everyone in the room and our viewers on the web this morning. i and the director of international security program here and a host for this morning's military strategy form. we have been doing these forms for about a dozen years now almost and it is due in great part to the generous support of -- and we thank you for that support without which we could not do this program. it's a pleasure for us to have with us this morning chief of staff of the united states army, general ray odierno. general ray odierno is from new jersey. anybody who is from new jersey these days is a little bit distracted by the front of the storm. i grow up in louisiana and we are sort of use to this thing that we don't usually have a hurricane. we have a windchill and snowfall so it complicates matters a bit. i hope everyone is all right of there this morning. we have been doing this series
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recently focusing on where in the military service is going so it's a very important point of history. general odierno started in the army not in the last drawdown but the one before that, the one after vietnam and those just coming and we have been talking about drug downs for some time now. we are now at the cusp of ones and we don't know how long, we don't know how far and how deep but there are a lot of lessons. there there are a lot of ways in which is this is different it has ever been before historically. the way we are going to lay this outcome i would like you all to make sure you turn off your cell phone so we have no noisemakers in the room other than the -- we are going to have a short discussion and general odierno will give an address from the podium, we will have a chat on the stage and open up the floor to questions. in order to maximize the number of questions we can get asked we
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will ask you to news -- use the notecards. write your questions down whenever you want and try to make them readable and hold them up when you are done and people will collect them. we have in front a couple of experts who will assimilate questions and then they will ask once they come around at the end here. so that is where we will work that. i want to welcome you all again and ask you to please join me in a warm round of welcome for general ray odierno. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i guess i remembered to turn mine on. it's great to have this opportunity. when i first talked we thought there had be 30, 40, 50 people and we have a few more for the than that so i appreciate everyone coming out today. i want to talk about several things.
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i want to take about 10 minutes and just give you some of my thoughts because i want to leave a lot of time for discussion because i think that'll be the most beneficial thing for you and for me and i don't mind tough questions. those are usually the best that i get a chance to answer so again i want to thank csis who have provided these valuable strategic insights and i appreciate the great work led by dr. -- he kept telling me he was stuck and i didn't believe him because rome in the fall, you know, it's kind of nice but he really was trying to get back so i appreciate. david again thank you so much for taking this on. one of the things that i initially talked about is as we look to the future, also trying to figure out where we are today and how they get we get to the future because it's not just about knowing today and getting to the future. you have to work your way through series of timelines and of other commitments that you have. i always start out by reminding
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everybody that as i stand here today, the army has 60,000 soldiers in afghanistan. we have 15,000 soldiers deployed in kuwait, kosovo the philippines sinai, horn of africa. we have about 90,000 soldiers and civilians stationed across the globe in 160 country so that is where we start from. and as we now look to the future and as we look at a new defense strategy as we try to work through what the roles of the different services are and the defense strategy i also remind everyone that we will be downsizing during this time. the army who at the beginning of calendar year 12 was a 570,000 will go down to 49,090,000 in the active component by the end of 17 so we have significant deployment commitments. we are downsizing our army and we are now looking to the future. one of the main things is we have to do is ensure we have the right mix so i talk about rea
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stats and the secretary of the army and i really pay a lot of attention to it. end strength, modernization and readiness. in general terms those are the drivers and we have to keep those imbalance. we want to learn from the lessons of the future of past drug downs and some of the lessons is you can't get out of balance because if you get out of balance you start to have an unready army which leads to a hollow army and of course we always talk about in the army task force and its impact and unpreparedness as it was asked to go in to korea forced world war ii. we don't want that to happen. the secretary of the army and i have been clear that we are committed to make sure that we are ready so no matter what size wind up the one dominant factor is we will be ready and we will be modernized and prepared to do whatever mission we have so we have got to make sure we keep that balance and we have to keep reviewing it and keep adjusting
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it. we have got to make sure we have a ready capable force to meet the future missions and that is what we are focused on as we go forward as well. we have to make sure there's a right mix of forces and when i talk about next, it's about light, heavy medium. it's about active component, reserve component and the right mix of civilians, military and contractors. to the right mix between operational army and the institutional army. you have to get all of that right as you move forward and you've got to figure out what is that right mix and what are the qualities you think you need to have as you go forward. so we have to learn from the past. but we also have to capture recent lessons and we have to see how do they apply to what we think of future operating environment will be? so it's about learning from the past, it's about applying the right lessons but it's about how does it apply to the future operating environment as we go
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forward. so we have to do several things. we just rolled out brand-new documents for the first time the army has done an extensive rollout of doctrine and recent memory. we published the initial high-level documents of our doctrine and the sub elements over the next six or eight months and represent represents represent some of the lessons we learned in how we think they will apply in the future. this is key as we start to look to the future, making sure we are dazed and what we believe is the way forward and we do that by writing a doctrine. we have to look at operations in the type of operations and what are the best ways train our forces for the future. one of the more important things is how do we develop leaders? we believe one of the most important things we have to do is adapt our leader development program so what i mean by this, this is about adapting leaders from the time he starred as a cadet as a cadet at west point all the way through the time your general officer in how we adapt those in order to be able
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to understand and operate in the complex environment that we think we will have to do in the future? we have to implement new dod strategic guidance with the army and which in my mind plays a critical role. the army role will and continues to be an indispensable part of the joint force. and although we sometimes talk about army, and navy air force marine corps it's about the joint force. it's about the synergy of all the service in order to meet our nations needs and that's energy and balance necessary to move forward and implement a new strategy. one of the issues i always have is when people want to do an evaluation in the army they look at brigade combat teams. how many do you have and how many t. need for the future? that is fundamental to what we do however people tend to forget many other parts about the army that are so critical to us supporting the joint force.
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75% of their personal force of special operations forces is the army. we can't forget about that. we are responsive and we have to make sure we stay responsive to civil authorities and we have continued to make sure we have the right capability to respond and as you see what's going on today up in the northeast. we have provided a broad range of essential services today to combat and commanders and that includes intelligence, surveillance recognizance for off the geographical combatant commanders. would provide air and missile defense. geographical combatant commanders provide logistical support for all geographical combatant commanders. we provide signal communication support to all geographical combatant commanders. these are key critical missions that people tend not to think about as we go forward. so it's important that you understand that. we provide key -- for aviation
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and information operations civil affairs military police wmd defense capabilities, corps of engineers who are pretty busy today and doing many other things. we have critical components and military space program. for example we are responsible for everything from the satellite on down to the ground station in providing communications based on space-based elements. a lot of people don't know that. that's the army's responsibility. as we look ahead obviously cyberis one of the more importantly is we have to have to remember as we go forward. and and as i look at cyberthere are couple of things. to have national level cyberand operational attack cyberand how we develop this for the future, what is them into the future way of conflict? how do we integrate that into our operational tactical forces? had with protector on network's? all of this will be critical as we go forward.
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and then we have to put that against what i consider to be what is the operational strategic environment that we have to operate in there is much discussion about it and there should be a lot of discussion but the one thing i do know is there is an incredible uncertainty as we look to the future. every monday, i have my intel people come in and briefs me on hotspots and they put a map up. i could spend a whole the whole afternoon talking about it. what i do know is that covers the entire map of the world as we talk about the hotspots in potential areas of instability as i recall it. and what we have to figure out are what are the drivers of instability that we face and how are we going to meet and try to reduce those drivers of instability that impacts our national security whether it be in the middle east which you read about everyday, whether it be syria, whether it be iran,
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pakistan. the sunni-shia fault lines in the middle east, where there be out in the pacific in china. we look at what is going on with the islands within the pacific, korea and 29-year-old leader in charge of korea. what is he going to do in the future? we have narcoterrorism and transnational narco-terrorism. what does that mean to the future and security of our country? i don't know. these are questions we have to take a look at and these are questions that we have to be prepared to operate in. the other thing that i have learned frankly the hard way over the last several years is that you also have what i call opportunists, who will try to take advantage of this instability in destabilizing influence and nascent governments are failing governments and these opportunists may be unpredictable. i always use iraq as an example. there are lots of opportunists
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in iraq, iran, turkey, saudi arabia and nonstate actors all opportunists trying to take advantage of the situation. how does that project itself around the world? what does that mean to us as we look at the future of conflict? the operational environment of conflict is changing but in my mind the fundamental nature of war remains the same and that is the struggle to influence populations in governance. that has not changed. so it's how we continue to understand that struggle within the new operational environment and the context we see it. the army was created 237 years go to defend this great nation insecure abroad and in my opinion that appear -- imperative does not change so the one thing i tell everyone
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you said we are starting from a position of strength and why do i say that? because in the army specifically we have the most combat tested, combat ready experience force we have ever had and what makes us different than the one that came out of vietnam for example is this is an all-volunteer army. in vietnam it was not and a lot of that experience went back home. today we are going to sustain that experience. we are going to sustain those so we start from a position of strength and we want to move to the future. because of the experience, capability that we now have and it's important that we leverage that as we move forward. as a look ahead just a couple of things i want. want an army that is capable of many missions in many speeds, many sizes under many different conditions and the capability to operate in any environment. so i kind of put that as a starting point as we look at
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what role they will play in implementing the dod strategic guidance. and yes the army will always be there to fight but it's no longer enough. whether it's fiscal constraints are the way the world is changing around us as an army we have to be able to do much more. to help the geographic combatant commanders in order for them to shape a complex and dynamic uncertain world. conflict is ultimately a human endeavor and the army strength is operating amongst the populations. as a nexus of many domains including cyber, it's very important to us to understand the relationships between cyber and the human dimension and the land domain. and what does that mean for future conflict? and i think sometimes in our conversations we don't really talk about that and it's important for us to understand that as we move forward. i believe the army's unique strategic capabilities are crucial as we move forward.
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we have to be able to provide a flexible mix of capability of small to medium light forces and provide versatility to the joint force. we have to be capable of deploying anywhere in the world in 24 is a less. we recently completed a joint readiness training center and this week at the national training center we have established what we believe we might look at in the future and what is the future environment of our brigades, and divisions for our companies might face? is a joint intergovernmental multinational environment. it is inter-agency participation. it's an environment that might require some combined maneuvers but also has a touch of terrorism, criminality, opportunists. to complex battlefield that one minute might require some level of combat operations in the next
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minute might require leaders to adapt and understand the social economic conditions they are operating in and out of the integrate inter-agency multinational, multinational actors in a very small area? that is important for us so we are now training toward that end adjusting that as we go forward. that will be important in informing us what are the capabilities we need and what are the modernization programs we need as we go forward? we also in my mind provide something that the other services can but we have had a lot of recent experience and that is providing jdf capable headquarters. and we have been able -- with completely over the last 10 or 12 years to play gtf force, the center of jt's so what we want to do is build capabilities that allow us to have joint task force of the cable of operating from the lowest level, but i'll
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that a lot enables us to support combatant commanders and achieving their goal weather shaping their environment, preventing conflict are actually executing complex in some way so it's incredibly important for us in that area. there are some things where already doing. from up until this year the army has been built and organized over the last five, six or seven years in order to respond to iraq and afghanistan. the army force generation process in winter process that is essential to ensure our forces are ready, prepared in order to operate in iraq and afghanistan. we now need to look at how we are going to translate that in the future and the first step is going to regionally allied forces so we can adjust this army force generation model in order to train and make available combatant commanders to regionally aligned forces and that is all sizes. it can be platoon, brigade, can be combat, combat support and
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service support. and we are developing capabilities so we get better at building partner capacity by doing exercises, multinational exercises. that 160 2nd brigade which few people know about in louisiana. they were established several years ago to help us build, to build and train our teams that are training both in iraq and afghan forces. we are going to adjust that command as we start to come out of afghanistan to look worldwide at how we do building partner capacity. they will be our training center for making sure we are training individual property in order to be able to do this. those are some of the subtle adjustments we are making that will continue to move forward. this year we are aligning the 2nd brigade to africa and africom has 96 missions over the next 12 months to execute.
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from platoon level all the way up to the higher level of exercise. that is the needs that are out there now and that is how we will continue to adjust to adjust as we go forward. i talked about responsive scalable tactics. we are also looking at soft conventional force interdependence. we are working closely with special operations command in continuing to develop the relationships we have had over the last 10 years in iraq and afghanistan. how does that project in the future? we are standing up and officers to t. chick plan. that will be the special operations command in the army and the marine corps to look at future conflict. what does it mean to ground forces? what are the characteristics and capabilities that we want? just an example for example, they are now aligned with pacom
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and in fact they are going to undergo a pacom sponsored jdf certification exercise. they are engaged in security cooperation, bilateral and multilateral exercises. they will provide options and security force assistance and relief in the pacific command area of response of these are some of the things we are doing. i want to quickly throw those out so you have an understanding of where we are beginning to end. in the end we are going for an army that was organized and trained over the last 10 years for iraq and afghanistan one that is going to go to regional allied forces and when the future that will go to mission tailored forces. that will be tailored to specific missions in specific areas of the world but also have the ability to sustain a campaign quality as needed depending on where it goes. again i want to reiterate our goal is that we'll have we will have an army that provides capabilities for many missions
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and many speeds and many sizes under many conditions and operating in and and a lot of the complex environments. i want to thank you for allowing me to speak and i look forward to your questions. i will just say one thing in closing. what i do know is that the nature of conflict as we go forward but continued to require our presence in order to achieve decisive results. i reiterate that it will be a human endeavor. you have to understand the human dimension of conflict how it integrates with land, air and sea and cyber and this will be essential to us as we implement this is future security strategies in this nation. so with that i will end and i look forward to your questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> it's wonderful to have professionals with the support when needed.
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[laughter] general, that was a very good and thorough tour of the challenges that we are facing and as you look back over the last decades, the army really has had some remarkable achievements both at the individual level and every unit level all the way from swat on up. it's really been quite a remarkable run. in many areas in which in fact we never knew we were have to use our army to do missions and operations. but some of that is not easily translatable into the world that we face today. it depends on how you would look at it from organizing point of view. the strategic guidance and of course you got there just in the nick of time to participate in the development and all the meetings that took place but is still an evolving dynamic. the end had not been specified all that well in particular the ways & means have not been finalized yet and we have tough challenges there. how do you wrestle with the
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question of translating the successes of that army into what will almost certainly be much fewer resources going forward? you talk about some of your downsizing but the end is not necessarily in sight yet is it? >> well we don't know. we are waiting and we will see what that turns out to be but again the goes back to when my comments as i look at the army. what again it's about that balance i talked about of an and strength and readiness and modernization and we can ever get out of balance because if we get out of balance it will cause us to potentially be unready and cause us to lose their overmatched capabilities that we might have with our potential adversaries so it's important we keep that in balance no matter where we go for it. but the thing i would like to stress is, it's about developing leaders because ultimately -- i'm talking about noncommissioned officers and officers alike so for us it's a
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complex environment and everybody can have an opinion of what the environment will be like and how we might use our military but nobody knows. nobody knows. we are trying to predict it and make sure we are understanding the world, trying to make sure we are ready for that but it's going to take adaptable leaders who can quickly understand and assess and understand the environment that we operate and how they use the resources and capabilities we have given them to be successful. one of the things we have to focus on is that so as i look at one of the things i have to do is reinvest in our institutional army. over the last 10 years rightly so, we took risks in the institutional army to ensure we had enough people in order to execute two wars in iraq and afghanistan. we now have to go back to reinvest in our institutional army to think through and understand these difficult problems and how we want to adapt later development in that we want to adapt organizations and how we want to adapt
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capabilities and to me that's important. what we don't want to do is rush in to this and we have to take her time and we have to continue to iterate. this is not a one time answer. when the budget comes out here and the 1317 budget, that is one shot. we have the 1518 and the 1620. it is an iterative process and building that army over time, understanding the resources that are available. >> it's true as you describe that iterative product -- iterative process is one of the strengths of the defense department, the ability to have not only an iterative process but one that is fiscally disciplined and where its program for a number of years into the future so you have a roadmap and you can map your resources against it. we are a little bit out of time time and doing that partly because -- and partly because with a supplemental and budget
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increases we have not had to wrestle with this. >> i remind, try to remind all of our leaders that the last 10 years have been a resource rich environment and i mean that because whenever you are involved in the war, our nation has been steadfast in making sure we have a we need. although there might be differences in why we are there and how we are there our congress has been good to make sure we have the right money to do what we need to do. as we all know that is no longer going to be the case so first it's about putting systems in place to understand and make sure we are using every resource to its best capability. so let me take an example. let me take training. how we have done training over the last five or six years in my mind is not replicate how we do training in the future. we were training for specific missions and training for responsiveness to our mission in
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iraq and our mission in afghanistan. we now need to go back and start training using virtual constructive and life capabilities in order to develop our army to do maneuvers and additional capabilities that allows them to be reasonably capable. we don't know how much that involves because we haven't done it in so long and i think we have developed systems along the line that allow us to do it more efficiently and so we are conducting pilots right now at ft. hood texas that will take a look at what this means and it is comparing regiment so it's not just about training being more efficient. it's about the result of the training so we are working our way through that. we look at how we adjust our training centers and that we can make them more efficient and get more capable and developing our forces. those are the kinds of things that go into the institution and i talk about the doctrine. that is underpinning this so
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this is a very complex moved and so people ask me, you know, these are a lot of challenges. ics opportunities. we have an opportunity here to really impact the future over the next four or five years. we have to. we have no choice. we have to take advantage of that and see it as an opportunity and really try to get our army and all of our armed services moving in the right direction to prepare us to make sure we continue to get ready to meet our security needs. to me, that can be pretty exciting. >> the challenge that the face is one that in some ways has been a longtime -- you mentioned the need of of the flexibility and adaptability for not knowing exactly what you are going to do. this makes it hard to figure out how to size the force structure. for a lifetime we have -- and requirements out there and operational plans for the war
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and the various iterations involved in the wars themselves if you will. how to anchor that adaptability to anything with size force structure? >> it is difficult and i've been doing this for a lot of years. 10 years ago i was in charge of army force structure size involved in this and i've been involved with it off and on for a long time so anyone of us, could come up with a scenario to build a million man army or scenario that makes us build a 100,000 man army in the same with the air force and the navy. in my mind the scenarios are -- in order for us to say can we meet scenarios. is about having the right capabilities to what i called prevent -- first you want to have the right mix that allows you to prevent miscalculations on our adversaries and it's about having the right balance of on
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ground, air and sea and whatever we might consider that to be in order to deter. there is a size to it and there is a quality to it and we have to make sure we have the right size and quality in order to deter. what we have learned over the years is that countries watch this very closely and they watch where we have our weaknesses and they would have being they can to exploit those weaknesses. we have to have a joint force that can shape the environment for combatant commanders and i think that is one of the things that this new strategy is driving us toward. in the past we really have not had the opportunity to shape our environment at least in the last 10 years because we have been so involved in iraq and afghanistan. there have been forces out there shaping but maybe not to the level we need them too so it's important to understand that is our mission. i think what is encouraging to me as i watch and it seemed how adaptive lawn -- our forces have
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been so i know we can be adapted into more than one thing at one time. we have to organize ourselves, the right training capability in place an order in order for us to take advantage and maximize the use of every organization that we have. to do several different missions. it doesn't mean that every unit has to build up. it just means we have to make sure we organize ourselves in such a way to do a broader variety of missions. >> if you do it that way sort of on the one hand it doesn't drive a particular size of force structure but it drives the relationship and the elements of that force structure. on the other hand it also doesn't give you what you're quipping needs to be so how do you translate that into equipment requirement? >> again it's a baseline so the baseline is i believe that for combat forces you have to have the capability to do combat,
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excuse me, combined arms capability so that is the baseline we have to train to and that defines what are the man is, what are they needs in order to move into the future. once you get to that baseline is where you build and in my mind is the variety of capabilities that can meet regional needs so you get to the baseline and yet then are able to allocate or line forces in such a way that gives them the opportunity to learn different core capabilities to support specific command, africom, centcom, southcom wherever it might be into me that is what leads to the future and understanding of what do that. >> you mention mentioned the need for building capability and the practices we have developed over the last decade and institutionalizing those worldwide and impact there is no place in the pacific where we have enormous opportunities for increasing engagement. this again are not big budget drivers and they are not
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equipment drivers and force structure drivers. part of function capacity is not just how other work with us but how we work with them. how do you tackle that? >> i think what we want first it's about developing relationships and trust, and so initially we have to reinvigorate the army relationship and we are doing that now. we have not been able to do it like -- we have to refocus in those areas. remind everybody that the pacific i know has a lot of water out there in the pacific but they are still lan center governments and their larger services the army the most politically -- so we have to engage with them. we have to ensure that we can do multi-viral events together to build confidence and in my mind that is the key piece of this,
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building confidence and going along with that, build capabilities we think are necessary for them to have in order to protect themselves and get into the overall regional security strategy. >> as you know when we took a look at that i asked if he recommended a four-star position in the pacific not because -- but that is because the requirements are. i have a thousand more questions myself but it's not just for me to ask questions. iop you have been the staff will come through and collect them and we will get them up here. let me ask you one more while we are waiting for the cards to come forward. in times of tight budgets, there is a tendency to circle the wagons and protect your core interests and not necessarily want to collaborate. you mentioned work with special operations command and also both
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the marine corps and army integration. are those the efforts that will keep you from saying it's a zero-sum game and the only way a wind is if you lose? >> i think first of all i have said from the beginning that we have to come up with the best joint force necessary for us to go forward and you have to, and you have to look at it from a joint force perspective and not a peripheral perspective. as we reduce capability someone areas those capabilities are picked up by somebody else and we have to make sure we are doing it properly. i would say if you look at the first round of cuts the army took a large majority in the first $487 billion with the cuts. i agreed without. we have grown since 2000. i think was appropriate for us to reduce end strength and i think that was what was the best and i will always continue to look at it then that way.
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but i also have to remind people that i also strongly believe that those who want to assume away a need for ground force capability, don't agree with that and i think it's a very dangerous, dangerous road for us to go down. and so i have to balance that and i will as we move forward. speeches for the record and if i 13 the budget control act the army took 58% of that cut in fy13. the navy took 7% and if you extend that out to fy14, 15, 1617 you are back in the realm of balance. that was one of the true are results of that effort. going forward you cannot speculate increases or decreases but i expect, questions will come back to that. do you guys have the mic? regarding ready to go? we will turn it over and get some questions from the audience. >> happy to have you here sir,
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nice to see you. the first question, and went to lump a come pull together because it's a common theme coming and it has to do maintaining and retaining the right people based on the reductions and the drawdowns in the change in the environment, the change in deployment so what specifically are you looking at with respect to retaining the right quality in the force and also leader developing into that? you have dressed a -- address later development but how do we maintain the right leaders in the force as well? >> one of the things i insisted on his last budget cycle is that we would do our reductions over a five-year period. the reason i insisted on that was so we could do at it the right way. by putting it over a five-year period there were three reasons i want to do that. we have to be careful about doing it upfront and secondly it to make sure we take care for families and soldiers we do this but the third is by doing it this way we are able to do a large majority of financial
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attrition and we are not going to have voluntary separation. we are going to choose who leads the army and we have several vehicles that will do that. we have done very well in the first year of this. i'm very pleased with results we have had in terms of sustaining the best and you know, retention. for the first time, not every soldier that want to stand was able the stand that we did it based on commanders. the commanders made the decision on who is going to stand that is the kind of program we will continue to have as we go forward. we are going to decide based on past performance and future attention. >> that is a change from the army in the last 35 years. >> let me follow up on that. one of the reasons -- general solomon who was the chief during the large downsizing in the
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'90s, and he said what bothered him was it was so much that they couldn't control it. so we try to make sure, you have to try to avoid bad that and as i look back at what we did back then we have worked hard to do that. we have agreement with business departments that defense in congress to do it the way we are doing it so to me that was a key piece of doing this. gets not only what size you reduce down to beat how you reduce and that is what has been so key for us going forward. >> he talked about talents and the downsizing process. the air force said it would be contentious process. how will you manage it with a guard and more for national security what is the right balance? >> all the structure came out of the active component so it's been a cordial -- [laughter]
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>> keep doing it that way and we will have no problems. >> if we had additional cuts in my mind it will be a combination of guard and reserve and u.s. army reserve. i mean guard, and active reductions as we go forward. how do i look at this? this characteristic that is important. people get confused with what is going on in the last five years and what we want to have in the future. in my mind, what happened in iraq and afghanistan is exact to how we have designed it to happen. the active component responded initially and was able to get things established and then as we needed more depth we were able to move into the national guard and u.s. army reserve to help us and it's gained that now significant amount of experience. that works very well. the ways we are organized now in the army, there are some reserve and national guard units that
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have to be ready to deploy very quickly. those tend to be combat service support outfits and combat support outlets that require much less training capability because the guard and reserve, the issue is time. it's not money, it's time. they only have so much time to sustain regiments to the characteristics of an active component is rapidly deployable, higher readiness able to meet initial needs and the reserve component is to maintain a level of readiness that they can respond when i longer period of time, provide unique capabilities that they are better to provide an active component. as they go through this i have to balance that and then decide what to anita as we go forward? that is part of the decision if we have additional cuts that required us to go after the active reserve component. the army is not about active reserve and it's about having the right total army package that allows us to meet our national security needs.
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it's about having the right amount of active forces to do what they need to do and the right amount of national guard forces and we have to consider state requirements as we develop our national guard because there are state requirements and then we have deceived -- decide what we need in the u.s. army reserve. that is what we will do as we balance and go forward and we are today and continue to be transparent in this process. >> cam would you indulge me in a follow-up on that question? you much of the capability that has been developed over the last decade and the need to sustain that both of the individual and the unit level and have a lot of the that capability in the national guard. the time is the challenge to. is is there some way can modify the way the guard is working to retain that capacity? >> so what we have done is, what i try to tell everyone is it's not going to be like it has been because frank they don't think the guard can sustain it because they have been they been deploying at high rates and let's get back to employers.
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employers are okay because they are fighting wars in iraq and afghanistan. when the wars are over it will be more difficult to get the employers to agree on long periods of time. you have to understand that going in so i'm trying to do is figure out how do we sustain this level of experience that we have gained in the guard and reserve? as we put the army force generation model, we will rotate them for that and that allows them in certain periods to increase the amount of time and get a higher level of training so we are working on that with them now. even that can be difficult. you have to put everything in perspective. again it's about how much time do they have in order to prepare and how much are their employers willing to put up with and how much people be willing to sign sign up? we have to balance all of that lead is strong national guard. we need one that provides the states and they are critical in many components going forward.
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>> another sort of cluster question is coming in on the concept of access and are projected for -- projection for army forces of the first question is how does the army perceived the anti-access broadly and its role in overcoming that in the second is given that the army, large proportion of the army is conus-based what are some of the principle challenges for the army as far as projection and getting forces forward in the fight? >> first a couple of things. one of the things i remind everybody of when i speak about specifics is we do have 66,000 soldiers assigned to the pacific. the soldiers are stationed i'll cannot walk, japan, korea, hawaii and then we have some on the west coast and alaska. we have significant
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capabilities, but the point you're making is a good one. their two aspects to access. one of the things i think it's important for us is to reengage and build strong relationships in the pacific regions to gain access to these areas where of overtime would have learned as you build trust and you do exchanges, it might enable us labor on -- later on to have access to the serious if we need them in the future and i think the army can help in delivering some of that. in terms of anti-access, forced entry operations is one that we will continue to work very hard on and we are, as we are developing herself coming out of the last force we are focusing on forced entry operations. it will be the center of our capabilities to do forced entry operations in a variety of environments.
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more significant levels of forced entry operations and we e are working as closely with the marine corps as well. so in my mind, there is a role for ground force and anti-access area denial is important and it requires a joint force depending on what we are trying to achieve. you can't achieve in my opinion -- with just air force and see force. you need air and sea ground forces. depends on what you're trying to achieve. in fact the joint staff is working on this now as we go forward. i think that's the right way to go. >> we can't wait to see them. we are looking forward to it. it's really quite a tough challenge. >> general, several questions about your comment about the institutional force and you are refocusing on that. can you define it for us? how big is it and how big should
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it be? >> there are a couple of aspects to this. we are going through this reduction now. we took all the reduction out of the operational force. i did not reduce the institutional army at all. i left them at the same size as they were. why did i do this? because they have been reduced and gutted and over the last several years combined. so in my mind, as looking at moving forward we have to reinvest our military members into the institutional army. what we have had to do because again we have had lots of contracts and civilians and we want to keep some of that capacity and unique capability but i have got to invest more uniform personnel back and. senior noncommissioned officers and officers back into our training and doctrine pipeline and it's important that we do this. because for me, they will be the
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engine that drives us as we continue to adjust with or be leader development programs, doctrine writing, developing new concepts and we have got to have the right people. it also allows me to keep some people there that if i have to expand the army in the future, the basis of leadership that will allow me to expand the army more quickly. so we can can go back and say okay we are going to take a more contractor centric approach to the future. to me for both of those reasons, really more focused on during this timeframe we are in now it's important for us to make sure we are investing in education and development of future capabilities and procedures and we have to invest them -- invest in them as we go forward. >> can i do a short follow up on that? how does that approach applied to the army today and the contractor support? they become diminished as part of that.
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>> i think potentially they might a little bit. >> in terms of numbers. >> yeah in terms of numbers but they will still play a role. >> how do you incorporate into the planning what those numbers need to be particularly on the contractor side? >> i think what we do is first trade-offs trade-offs work in this form and what they want to do is have the right balance because again contractors provide unique capabilities that we simply don't have. that is what they will focus on. we have civilians giving us the continuity and consistency we need and then we need our military members to provide us experience, expertise and frankly sometimes just the validity of what we are trying to do based on their experiences. i think that is what we are trying to capture. what i'm saying now is that his overbalance with contractors and civilians and i'm trying to
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rebalance it. >> got it. >> there is a lot of discussion about what we want to do and can do. what are some of the area specifically that you think the army going forward can assume more risk and capability and competencies as we sort of deal with an air of declining resources? >> i think it's, i think risk of capabilities is difficult. it may be a operational risk is where i think we'll have to assume it so for example the risk is going to be how much can we do at one time and how do we manage that operational risk? i think that is more what we are thinking about. now, there are some capability risks that we will take so for example a modernization program are not eliminating but slowing
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down. we have to watch that very carefully because we can't flow them so down -- slow them down so much where they become ineffective in making sure we have the right capability so we have to watch that very carefully as well. the one i'm not willing to -- we have to watch it we don't get out of balance with readiness and that is again, gets back into training readiness, the manning of the force and family readiness to make sure we keep those in balance and make sure we are prepared to do whatever we ask our young men and women to do. >> follow-up? you have the mite. >> on readiness one of the great questions out there right now among those of us that are talking about this is, where you see the sweet spot for army readiness and by that i mean sort of what you know, stand of area on the complex spectrum are you looking at as being the area
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where the army needs to be the most ready? >> well, the first thing i would say and this goes back to the answer gave earlier. there is a baseline of readiness that we have to sustain. and we have to get back to very quickly. so, what i want to make sure and what i'm trying to make clear is there is a baseline of capability we must always have and you know, that doesn't mean we will train for the big war but what that means is we have to have a tactile proficiency that enables us to have a building block capability that allows us to respond to a broad size and range of issues. that is what we will be focused on. in addition, we will build on that regional expertise and cultural and other language expertise is and allow them to be effective. one of biggest lessons learned i
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have personally had over the last 10 years is their complete lack of knowledge in iraq and afghanistan when we first went in 2004 in 2005. we can ever never allow that to happen again. we have got to be much, much more aggressive in understanding and viewing things from the eyes of those who are going to conflict and we just have to do better in those areas. >> one final question to give you an opportunity for final comment. >> you comments have been a lot of interest. you mentioned armies facing population as well as operating -- cbs "newshour" past -- [inaudible] >> "don't ask don't tell," the elimination of the "don't ask don't tell" we are a year into this so i don't want to abstain it but it could not have gone any better than it has gone.
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i think it has to do first with how we rolled it out, how we briefed it and frankly we underestimated our younger populations and their ability, their acceptability of this issue. in my mind, so far it really could not have gone any better. there are still some things we have to work through but it has gone very well. in terms of our recruiting, i always caveat this because it has a lot to do with our economic and unemployment that the last two years up in the highest quality of recruits the army has said that i can remember. in terms of educational levels and in terms of waivers we have granted him a party recruited 30,000 for next year. which is half of our requirement. it's already done. there are people -- when the economy changes could
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impact us? c.'s, but right now it is not impacted our recruiting and it is does not impact their quality operational and it is not impacted us. >> general, you have been in the job for a little over a year now. if things go right you have three more years to go. i know much of the decade before you took this job you were not in the middle of the night waking up saying what would i do to achieve and you have those things on your mind. what has surprised you the most? >> well, i think, i guess i have to be careful because i was the commander in iraq. i had the freedom to make some pretty significant decisions and my freedom is not quite the same here in washington. [laughter] that is probably one of the biggest adjustments i had.
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i realize it did not have completed tom and me but i knew that but it took me a while to really understand it. i think the real challenges that we have is that we have this large organization that has to go through some very significant change and it's about some of the things -- same things they faced, but a vision of change and how you implement change. in iraq we had to implement a change signing a security agreement, surge, signing an agreement and going into stability operations. we are going through that same kind of changed now so it's about having the right vision and how you implement change using your leadership and getting by incent communicating the change you want to make into me that is critical as we go forward. we have spent a lot of time, the secretary and i've spent a lot of time on internally making
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sure we communicate where we want to go and it has not been necessary difficult but something we have had to take on and we will have to continue to take on as we move forward. there is a lot of angst in the army because of downsizing and it's because of the changes and its ability to communicate that. it's hard to communicate to 1.1 million men in uniform who have been active guard and reserve, another 270,000 civilians, 1.4 million family members. that's a lot of people to reach out to. ..
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>> these are the stories blacked out. they're great words about real people in american history, very important moments in american history we don't know about.
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the first programs in america can take years before the mayflower. they were french. they made wine. they had the good sense to land in florida in june the third of december massachusetts, but then they were wiped out by the spanish but the story was completely left out of textbooks for the most famous woman in america was taken captive by anand in 1865, march new hampshire. in the middle of the night she killed her capture, realized she could get a bounty for scalps, went back on the scalp them and made her way to boston where she was a. the first statute to an american woman, a permit statue shutter with a hatchet in one hand and scalps in the other.
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>> hurricanes and he is now believed to be one of the costliest natural disasters with insured losses estimated to be as much as $20 billion. we discussed the national flood insurance program and how the insurance companies are responding to sandy with an industry representative. this is a half-hour. postcode let me introduce you to john prible, vice president of the independent insurance agents and brokers of america. our topic is the national insurance program. mr. purple, this article was in "the wall street journal" yesterday ensures market bubble tab. what's the responsibility when it comes to recovering from sandy? >> guest: sure, that article and a hand like really captures exactly what is going on. so when a typical insurance event for a hurricane, there's
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going to be damage caused by wind, wind storm damage, fallen trees. you see in the news media there's going to be fires or natural gas lines. all of this damage will be covered are your typical homeowner's insurance policy that is covered by the private insurance, so you're going to contact if you have a claim camile contact your insurance company. they're going to cover it with your limits and deductibles and it's going to be private policy. any damage caused by flooding is covered only if you have a flood insurance policy to the national flood insurance program. that is the public program, a government program that covers flood losses. that ultimately will be picked up the tab, will ultimately be picked up by the policy in that program. so there's really kind of two
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ties these losses are going to come from. there's going to be the private insurance tab and then there's going to be the trend for pay my tab. >> host: what about a homeowner who doesn't participate in the flood insurance program and doesn't have private flood insurance? what happens to that person? >> guest: unfortunately, that person really is in a hard place right now. unfortunately it's probably a lot of people in new jersey. in new jersey there's about 260,000 people in new jersey that have flood insurance. in new york there's about 150,000 people. the end in new york about 150,000 people have it. there's going to be a lot of people that don't have it. >> host: john prible, we say that it sat on the private side?
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>> guest: those are policyholders of the national flood insurance program. you are correctly surmising a lot of consumers that don't have national flood insurance policies. those citizens are not going to be covered for their flood losses that result from hurricane cindy. they will be covered from windstorm losses, typical homeowners policies will cover those types of events, but not flood policies. so these consumers only recourse is going to be a human disaster assistance. other eligible for korean, eligible for fema loan. these loans are typically a very low interest rate around 4% interest rate loans that help these consumers rebuild their
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properties. not a prerequisite for taking loans is in the future, they have to purchase their flood insurance policy so this doesn't happen again. >> host: so you represent mortgage brokers. >> guest: insurance agents and brokers. >> host: has your group estimated yet the cost to them? >> guest: we have not yet. this storm is such a colossal nature that it's going to take a while to get our arms around the total cost. the estimates i've seen soap are but the damage is anywhere from 5 billion to 20 billion. i've seen some estimates as high as 20 billion in damages. now i think that's even premature because we've been in contact with fema and day right now, and i think correctly, they are focused 100% on recovering
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and disaster assistance, helping people on the ground. they haven't even begun to put pen to paper and holy calculator out and start adding up the cost. and so, these estimates would be 5 billion to 20 billion are kind of from 30,000-foot level, just really gases that smart people are making, but we're not going to really be able to put an accurate price tag on the senate for a couple weeks. >> host: 202 is area code. we've divided regionally if you would like to talk to john prible of the insurance agents and brokers in america group about the national flood insurance program. 585-3880 and eastern and central time zone. 585-3881 in mountain and pacific time zone. if you been impacted by this hurricane, with a two year your story, (202)585-3882 is the number for you to call.
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according to national oceanic and not mr. association, the costliest storms to hit katrina by one at funk shot. take, about 30 billion. andrew in 90 to about 36.5 billion. wilma in 2005, i've been 18 billion, charlie indo for 15 billion, reader, frances and jeanne all and hurricane damage. in your view, does the national flood insurance program currently structured work? >> i think it does work. it does help protect consumers from an uninsurable event in the private arcade. the program was created in 1968 was the result created because the private market could not accurately and in suitably
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underrate the insurance risk. so what was happening was people were completely without flood insurance protection. so is happening in the 60s and 50s as american citizens were being flooded and the only recourse that she had was federal disaster assistance after the fact. so the program was created to have people pay into a program and be prepared for storm and a flood event before it happened. now, it certainly could use improvement. you know, there are critics out there whose fate is is too subsidized by the federal government. there's actually a major law signed this summer, the bigger waters flood insurance reform act. it was designed to improve the program. it removes a lot of subsidies that the government has put into the program. the goal of it is to make the
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program were actuarially found him a of private insurance program. >> host: "the wall street journal" this morning, the editorial, taxpayer jay louche. for those who don't have the 1960s era program offers subsidized insurance of the bull market raced to homeowners and businesses in flood prone areas and pays private insurers to administer the policy at the government accountability office put it zero so delicately lasher the program has a history of significant management challenges, including lax internal controls and outdated maps. the program has crowded out by the competition for decades, which leaves taxpayers on the hook when disaster strikes. that's "the wall street journal." "washington journal" if i could respond, i represent the independent insurance brokers of america. we like working with the private marketplace. like working with company partners. we would love to sell private
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insurance, private flood insurance in the open market. the simple fact is that doesn't exist. in the 1960s there was no private flood insurance and so this government program was created in order to fill that void. the national flood insurance program hasn't crowded out the private flood insurance market. the private flood insurance market didn't exist and so the flood insurance program was created to spell that void. now, there is an arrangement with the private insurance carriers called to write your own program, where the federal government underwrite and backs of flood insurance policies, but they are serviced by these private companies, to write your own companies. this is done this way to affect his and efficiently the product and is really a tank for the benefit of can tumors, write
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your own program. >> host: said mr. prible, if you live in a flood prone zones and it has to be labeled as such, you have to buy flood insurance, correct? >> guest: yes, a few of the mortgage federally backed. so essentially you have a mortgage. so do you have to buy it through the nfip or can you buy three broker? >> guest: you can absolutely buy three broker. >> host: is expensive? >> guest: it depends where you live and what flowed flood zone you live in. the cheapest flood insurance out there rents you about a hundred $20 here. for $10, $11 a month. if you're in a very low risk area. not your average premium, average in the nfip runs about
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$600 a year. so not terribly expensive. now, there are zones that are going to be more. those are going to be the highest risk zones come in the zones was specifically to flood is a very fine line you have to walk if you want to keep the program affordable so consumers purchase the policy and our protect kids, they get you also want to make sure that the program is charging the accurate read so it doesn't go bankrupt. so it's a delicate balance. again, the act signed into law this summer will end up raising some of the prices, but that is because policymakers here in washington d.c. decided it was more important that the program be structurally and financially sound showed that he continues to exist to protect consumers. >> host: so if somebody had a house on the "jersey shore" and
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wanted to be flood insurance, would it be expensive? >> guest: each individual needs to taxpayer agent broker. if you don't have an agent broker, but a trusted choice.com and find one. that agent or broker will you out to the flood insurance application process in determination of what flood you are. >> host: we have this tweet from chris in alabama. now the insurance lawyers will pour out of the woodwork to make distinctions between wind and water damage. >> guest: i know exactly what he's referring to. this happened in katrina. there was some uncertainty about what caused a particular structural damage. in katrina you had a lot of houses and structures that were completely wiped off and the only thing left was a slab of
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concrete. it is difficult to determine whether the damage was caused associated with katrina are swept away by the storm surge in the flood. there's controversy about whether damage was caused by wind versus water. it is caused by water, the national flood insurance program picks up the tab. this wind, the private insurance picks up the tab. now, the storm i don't anticipate there being that much controversy surrounding that issue partly because based on the footage that i've seen, there haven't been widespread properties total loss properties that katrina had. i think we'll have a better opportunity for adjusters to come out and he is a very
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scientific process, looking at the storms, looking at damage, water levels, watermarks on the property. these adjusters will determine whether the damage was caused by flood or by wind, or at least that is my hope. >> host: mr. prible, what about municipal damage? new york subway system. is that new york city? and income are the insured through private broker? >> guest: new york city, based on what i've read and what i've understand, anticipate they do not have flood insurance to the flood insurance program. they anticipate asking the federal government for help in the form of grants, in the form of disaster grants to help cover the cost of recovery for those kinds of transit programs. >> host: but would a city have private insurance as well?
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>> guest: yes come a city absolutely could purchase private insurance. municipalities, but would likely not cover flood insurance -- flood damage. >> host: john prible is the vice president of that group. numbers are on the screen to do to participate in our conversation about the national flood insurance program. we'll begin with frank and placita, florida. hi, frank. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. since i live in flood them in unfamiliar with fema insurance, it doesn't cover on the first floor except equipment. so the losses those people suffered in those one-story homes probably won't be covered. so i'd like to know -- and there's a limit on the amount of insurance you can get, so that kind of limit your liability.
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and also, how are they going to deal with homes that burned down, with there's nothing left but a slab? >> host: thank you, frank. john prible. >> guest: first of all, you are correct that the contents of a structure in the basement are generally not covered by the flood insurance policy, but the first were actually discovered. my experience in new jersey have a lot of family and friends in the "jersey shore" and i spent a lot of summers vacationing to seaside heights and it's terrible what happened up there. my experience as most of the properties that are do not have basins because they are built in sandy soil where they are practical. most of them will not have to worry about the basement coverage been excluded. first-floor contents absolutely will be covered.
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you're right also to mention about the content of limit. there are limits for residential structure. the limit for property damage is $250,000 at the national flood insurance will pay. for the contents, that's $100,000. now, your second question about the burned down homes. you now, i am not an adjuster, so i don't want to speak for individual properties, but i will make a broad kind of speculation that if it's demonstrated that a home is burned down through a rupture in a natural gas line, for example, that will likely be covered by the private insurance market since a homeowners policy covers
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fire damage. >> host: from "the wall street journal" yesterday morning, the cash-strapped national flood insurance program currently able to borrow about 3 billion more from the treasury to pay claims before it hits a cap of 20.8 billion. my see c. and d. are late to force the homeland security to ask congress for more resources according to ray lehman become a senior fellow at the our street institute, a free-market think tank focused on issues. >> host: that is something i'm very concerned about and i know the insurance industry as a whole is can parent. the numbers size of a couple weeks ago, i just had a meeting and the most recent numbers and i'm a little bit rounding here, but the program has the ability to fire up to $20.8 billion.
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right now they have earned approximately $18 billion end up as a result of hurricane wilma and katrina in 2004 and 2005 that causes damages. they have approximately $1 billion cash on hand, which adds up to exactly what you mentioned "the wall street journal" article. they have $3.8 billion of cushion of available cash in order to pay claims as a result of sandy. the question is are the flood claims going to exceed $3.8 billion? if they do, fema will have to come back here in washington d.c. and the lame-duck session to raise the borrowing limit beyond 20.8 alien. i'm mentioned earlier that fema hasn't even really begun to
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calculate the total cost of the event. so it will be a couple weeks before we know whether or not that's going to be required of that raising of the cab. i certainly hope the total losses to the nfip are below 3.8 billion. what this event in the footage i've seen, it's certainly a strong possibility that it's going to exceed losses. >> host: paul and clear feared pennsylvania. you are done with john prible of independent insurance agents. >> caller: thank you for taking my call on c-span. thank you, mr. prible for talking to you. i don't want to take away from the seriousness of the east coast. that has priority now. i live on the west branch of the susquehanna river in pennsylvania. there is a multimillion dollar slide control about three miles from me, has been there since the 60s or 70s.
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i have recently been required to have flood insurance after 20 some seven years of living in my house. i have approximately two years ago and my mortgage. i have been chilling with fema and needless to say my mortgage company, just staggering how hard it is to get anything out of them. insurance is expensive. it is tired to protest, if i can use that right word, or use that word, the findings. as i see the maps are updated. it is costly to get that done. i am at my wits end about what to do about this. obviously i'm going to have to pay it. the mortgage company is requiring me to have insurance, said they're obviously getting the insurance. it is $2000 a year and that is almost my mortgage to be honest with you. >> host: is that your total homeowners insurance or just the flood part? >> guest: that is just the
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flood park, sir. and by the way, that only covers the structure. it does not cover -- it does not cover the content of the house. i somewhat understand that, but i don't know where to go to be very honest with you. >> host: let's get a response from trent green. >> guest: first of all, i certainly sympathize. we are hearing from a lot of consumers that things like this are happening and i will say the policymakers in washington d.c. have been hearing it as well. i've mentioned the bigger waters flood insurance reform act, which is passed this summer. that help to expedite your appeals process. you mention which are hopefully doing is appealing the flood mounts that have come out.
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there are some new expedited procedures that may help you. if you do challenge these maps, let's say, for example come you hire an engineer to come out in order to show your elevation is higher. there is not a recruitment process to use to pay for the engineer to come out and challenge that because it doesn't come out of pocket. what i would encourage you to do, you can get online at flood smartstart code and take a look at that site. you can review the flood insurance program. it documents that show exactly what the new law changes. if all else fails again, i know i keep mentioning, but insurance agents and brokers are here to advocate on your behalf.
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so if you don't already have an insurance agent or broker, go to trusted choice.com and find one. they may not be able to solve your particular problem. i can't promise, but they certainly make every effort to help you. >> host: this e-mail, our fema was like student loan said must be repaid? what is the time for repayment for the dollar limits for fema loves? >> guest: yes, they are very similar to a student loan. orrin mortgage is probably a better comparison. the typical fema loan tuition is 30 years jessica 30 year mortgage. again, you can certainly take loans for less duration, but if you have a hundred thousand dollars for damage come you may need a 30 year loan to make payments affordable for you. typically these are very low
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interest rate loans, generally around 4%. >> host: when you look at the division here, is the federal government going to pay more insurers for a disaster like this? if you could take it back to katrina on another one of the big storms. >> host: the general rule of thumb is if you talk about total losses. if there's $20 billion as a result of sandy and the general rule of losses count about 50% of that. if china ends up being a 50/50 split, with the private insurance market covers 50% of the damage and the man in the msi p. disaster assistance covers the other 50%. >> host: john prible, we've been getting some tweaks. this is jim.
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because the probability of loss is so high, private insurers won't underwrite. larry says it is silly to say the private insurance companies aren't capable of offering flood insurance. you can ensure anything for a price. eric says government insurance is in direct competition with u.s. businesses. government has no business being in the spirit >> host: the tweet is that the private insurance market can ensure anything given the right price, i think that's accurate. the private market can certainly insure something. it just depends upon the price. i suspect the private market back in the 1960s decided they needed to charge exceptionally high prices because the risk of flooding was really, really high and the prices they needed to charge were so high that they
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would price the consumers out of purchasing the program. and so, i mention this earlier, but there is a fine line of charging the right price, but yet not pricing yourself out of the consumer market. the flood risk unfortunately, you mentioned the storms and all of them being since 2000. you know, the list of the major storms. everyone of them except andrew i believe was in the two thousands. you know, flood risks are massive and they will make for a repaired part of that is construction along the coast. you know, the number of residents within 15 miles of the coast is staggering. and so, the private flood insurance market, simply the affordability isn't there. now what the hope is to begin
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bigger waters flood insurance reform act is you can remove some of the subsidies given through the program and make slowly transition prices to be more actuarial son and represent the true risk of his policies, if we can get the program to charge what the risks are, the private market may be able to step in and compete with the federal program. if there's no subsidies from the federal program, the private market can come in in charge of the federal program is charging. again, i believe that may be a bit of racial thinking because the risk is really, really high in certain parts of the country. >> host: next call for john prible comes from mary in catonsville, maryland. >> caller: high committee nemec for taking my call. i've been a claims adjuster
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medical 30 years and i know what's covered and what's not covered by private insurance. however, my question is, can you purchase a flood policy if you do not live in the flood zone? >> guest: yes come you absolutely can. and if you do, your premiums are going to be significantly lower than those individuals that do live in a flood zone because your risk is lower. the number that you are watching earlier that i gave, the cheapest flood insurance policy is made about $129 per year for your premiums. that exact property that is not in the flood zone has very little risk. you do have to be in a community that participates in the national flood insurance program. the communities have to participate in the program in order to participate in the
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program they have to undertake flood land management in order to mitigate the risk of flood insurance. >> host: virginia, bay city, michigan. virginia, did you get some effects of hurricane city in michigan? >> caller: know, however been in the great lakes area we had torrential waves and we certainly were affected, but not nearly as much as those folks right on the water. however, john, you seem like a very nice young man. i've been around the block a little bit and sold real estate in our area for many years. even michigan, clearly water is everywhere, right? and i will tell you this is clearly another example of socializing the debt, privatizing the process and unfortunately, people do not win at the end of the day and they get stuck with the bill.
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clearly they get stuck with the bill. and that's why if you do make a claim with fema, they don't have the money to do otherwise. then the label will be stuck to the property forever. so when they go to sell it, even if you are in an area that hasn't flooded in 100 years, but you have to be in an area that designated thought or perhaps there was a flood one time and feedback came in to give relief. if you take that money, but then labels or property. so good luck with resale. so i feel that for the guy who wants to retire in a couple years for his time at this mortgage and a couple years. that is a shame. and by the way, the banks are the insurance industry. the insurance industries the
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bank. there is no difference. we've done away with that. years ago a camp as entity separate are gone. they do not exist anymore. so this falls on the shoulders of the people once again. so first to be viewed as anything coming in now, why would people have a problem with obamacare because truthfully sure we are. here we are with flooding. to make it anything other than that is unfortunate and a shame and people are totally been taken advantage of. >> host: john prible. >> guest: if i could tackle the beginning point did she mention socialism at that privatizing profits. when it comes to the flood insurance program, all premiums premium statements that program stay in the program. so every year, typically the transport takes in $2.5 billion in premiums. those staying in the program and
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all those premiums go toward paying claims for consumers towards servicing the debt they resulted from hurricane katrina. now, the private insurance carriers, the write your own companies, they only get an expense reimbursement. so they essentially get a stipend from the federal program in order to run the program. they don't really take part -- they don't earn premiums in premiums don't go into their private coffers. they just couldn't expense reimbursement. so the concept that the right to your own companies with the insurance industry as a whole is making a lot of money off of this program, it's just not accurate. you know, i can speak. my members are choice agents. you know, they are selling flood
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insurance really is a benefit for consumers in order to make sure consumers are protected from the dangerous peril. they are not making hand over fist money his post these. it's just not accurate. >> host: john prible, because of the hurricanes we looked at earlier in 04 and sandy, for those not affected, while the rates go up overall? >> guest: not as a result of this particular storm. with fema is currently doing and they been doing this for about 10 years as they are undergoing a modernization project, where they go across the country. a recent scientific and engineering models in the chute remapping update. we had a caller earlier mentioned that the map was old and out of date. soon, that map will not be old and not a day because fema is undergoing a modernization
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project. so there will be changes to flood zones over the coming years if you've not already had a change come you may have one coming in the next few years. but it won't be a result of a particular storm or particular flooding event. these policies are different than private insurance policies in that regard it for example if you have an automobile insurance policy and you could in accident and a claim, your insurance premiums go going forward nicolet because of her history at the national flood insurance program doesn't quite work that way in the individual storms are flooding events don't have a direct bearing in your premium. but only influence the map. if they go when and remapping say, you know what, the elevation is lower than we anticipated nec has risen a few feet, so the risk is higher and that's how they determine whether premiums go up or not.
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>> host: john prible's vice president of the independent insurance agents and brokers of america. he's been a guest here on "washington journal." thank you, mr. prible. >> guest: thank you. >> just a few minutes ago, i called vice president bush to congratulate him on his back jury. -- of the durie. i know i speak for all of you in the american people when i say
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you will be our president and work with him. this nation faces major challenges ahead and we must work together. >> i just received a telephone call from governor dukakis. [cheers and applause] and i want you to know, he was most gracious. his call was personal, genuinely friendly and it is in the great tradition of american politics. >> next, fema administrator craig fugate and red cross advisory charley shimanski give an update on hurricane cindy response efforts. they discussed the need for food and shelter assistance and blood
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donations. after the conference >> caller: attracted to members of congress about how their home districts fared in the storm. >> good morning, everybody. although wide operations search and rescue is a much the first task on the we are very much in response the. today, as i collect a four piece, restoration, pumping operation, product out in the areas hardest hit and making sure we have a presence and averaged into the communities that are hit. yesterday again primary focus was search and rescue teams. that is shifted over to getting more virtue traditionally see and it's important to recognize this is not just state and local, but also faith-based
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communities. a lot of folks out there continue to work now as we are getting a new year. so that's the state in the disaster. we still have in west virginia a pretty significant snow event ending, but that a response activity. primarily come the states of new jersey, new york and connecticut are very much moving into the mass care part of this disaster and that is oftentimes going to be driven by the power restoration and getting people power back, bought her back, but also recognizing their homes damaged and destroyed that the matter what we do at our, the folks need longer-term assistance. so response moves into mass care. this is a faulty matter. i want to turn it to our partners at the american red
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cross, charley shimanski to update you on their activities. the mac thanks, craig, ladies and gentlemen. right now the american red cross is in communities providing coverage to folks impacted. we've been there since we pushed our leadership teams in. we always pray to play materials before hurricane season all along the coast. so we were already there before the storm occurred. shelters are now a been in nine states, but while we are maintaining that, were also quickly ramping up operations in places like i long island in places that have no power. feed it as their primary focus, feeding and sheltering as we move into the next 24, 48 hours. this is a frustrating time. we've all been without power and we know how frustrating that can be. we want folks to know where doing everything possible to make sure communities have the
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help they need. to that extent, more than 7000 people spent wednesday night in red cross shelters in nine states. in fact, more than a hundred shelters in new jersey, new york, connecticut, rhode island, delaware, west virginia and ohio and there's many more, thousands by people in additional shelters taking shelter for the states. when it comes to feeding come was deployed 12 mobile kitchens through partnerships not capable of at least 200,000 meals a day. regardie shipped a third of a million shelfstable meals to the area with many more as well in the outcome of serving nearly 165 meals so far, are feeding operation is ramping up in a big way. 230 emergency response vehicles can be mobile in the neighborhoods and communities distributing meals, water and
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snacks on the ground right now is fully two thirds of our national fleet. as in the response area. we have 3300 disaster workers. those are volunteers and staff from all over the country. we are bringing red cross responders from other countries in as well. that number will grow as well in coming days has been mobilized more and more. were also mobilizing community volunteers to assist in our efforts. we've deployed 50 trailers of relief supplies into the impacted areas and again, more help is on the road at airports reopened. we are working hard to get help where it's needed. but as you can tell, you report on the access in many areas is still very difficult. there are some areas. we expand reach into more and more communities as officials
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tell us that want to finish by telling you that the nation's blood supply is finished you in the 360 red cross blood drives have been canceled as of the storm. that represents for fa losses of as many 12,000 blood and platelet products. we ask people to please give blood to places not affected by the storm to schedule a blood donation if they can. we urge folks to go to the american red cross. we can't do without blood contributions. as fema has been saying all blog, we ask to check on your neighbor. even the frail and elderly. it's time for neighbors help neighbors and communities of communities. we are active in the local and
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state government. the national correspondence center are working closely with colleagues who have been doing an awesome job in this response. alternate back over to you for q&a. and folks, please keep in mind that a lot of folks on the call. we will limit ourselves to 20 more minutes. one question, no follows it. and with that operator the first question. >> thank you are the first question from jeff bliss with bloomberg news. >> i know you are still in response mode, but can you talk at all about what arrangements fema is making a temporary housing and how hud is working with you and will there be any trailers involved, do you think? >> probably not. which we've activated as a transitional shelter assistance. we've got over 9000 people.
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some areas it's going up as people go home and find their homes are flooded and can't stay there. we are working to provide assessment to get people into hotels and motels and ss who needs longer-term assistance. those programs are turned on. i don't have the last numbers yet, but we have over a million dollars last night. this is the process for people call 1800 fema, 18621 fema. we get the information, get them assistance. this approved funds are just approved. those are being distributed and that's how much housing assistance has dirty been provided. we are going to focus on housing assistance. a lot of people may have other losses and we'll get to that. given the rental markets and
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availability of hotels and motels, particularly its power comes in certain areas. we don't see the need for any type of trailers. we think we can provide assistance or traditional rental systems come and work very closely with secretary donovan in many communities particularly in lower manhattan. there were quite a few properties and manage properties of the local housing authority's impacted. so hud is working hard to assess those and determine how many of those will have damages to be repaired and what additional assistance may be needed for enron housing while facilities are repaired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> hi, i've got two questions. >> one question, please. >> okay. i'm trying to find out about the new york governor and senator is from new jersey one in fema to
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pay 100% of the cost of response and recovery. i mean come is fema going to do an hundred%? for little to be for those two states or how does that work? >> clearly the way the statute is written, we can recommend the president can't share adjustments based on impacts. traditionally, the impacts are shared as a joint shared responsibility. 25% state and local. we have adjusted, share based upon magnitude disasters previously would have succeeded extraordinary pass on a per capita basis and made recommendations to increase can't share to 90%. >> what about now? had he done that now? >> there has been no assessment of total damages. we're still very much in response mode and again, this is something that will will be needed later s. res. adjustments will be based upon impact and the numbers we have were not
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even in the point of saying what kind of total bill this is going to be. so we are working right now in response. these are reimbursement programs come us are talking about reimbursement after the fact. we also have direct federal support in the president has directed that we do those in support of state and local governments, particularly for operations and transportation operations and getting power back on. >> there's a little confusion about this because new jersey senators have put out a press release saying that fema has agreed to 100%. >> well, this is what we were talking about. the president has directed to provide increased assistance. that is 100% of the federal cost of providing direct assistance to power restoration and transportation for a 10 day period. that does not impact or effect
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the remaining disaster assistance, which was still at a and 75, 25. it does get technical and we can probably follow-up with the imac, but the hundred% was not for the entire disaster. it was the president's direction for a specific federal mission in support of power restorations and transportation the next 10 days. >> thank you very much. operator, next question. >> i'm a little confused about how much the disaster release fun. there's been reports of as much a 70. could you clarify how much is currently available? >> you know we are under continuing resolution, right? data applications based on what you expect to spend during that timeframe. said the allocation to fema is based upon how much carryover we had from last year and how much has been allocated. you know, these are considered
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no year monies, but under continuing resolutions we don't get a full year's allocation. we get a prorated allocation. this additional money available to be freed up, but the money allocated in the timeframe is mercy art mumbo-jumbo that gets confusing. what we have been the allocation was 3.6. as additional funds are based on the full year and we generally only get a portion to come out. i can be adjusted and their arty looking at that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. operator, next question. >> hi, mr. shimanski can you mention responders coming countries. just wondering if you know how many responders come from other countries and where they're from. >> the request is gone now. i don't know the number, but the mexican red cross has been activated and i don't know quite where they are in the nation, but they will be responding. they bring out large medical
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emergency contingent to support us in medical needs shelters and i blew the canadian red cross has been deployed. we received offers from other countries and we are groundedness as we determine what needs are. >> you put out the request for mexico and canada? >> in the case of mexico and canada, those are two that are societies work together. it's not uncommon for us to support each other even on small operations across our borders. we do a lot of collaboration with those countries. it's much easier than many other countries. on small operations we go cross-border on operations with them. we both of those countries respond to hurricane isaac for example appeared in each case they brought us between 15 and 20 responders and to support us in hurricane isaac. >> okay, but she requested a? >> yes, yes. we do so to make sure we've got muscle memory always available.
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we are not anywhere close to overwhelmed in terms of her own red cross capacity. with 60,000 volunteers in our database and were not anywhere near capacity. just as part of what we do, we exercise other volunteer components and other agencies and we regularly exercise with each other the in canada and mexico. i don't want anyone to get the sense we are overwhelmed to need the support from other countries. this is part of our sop. >> next question from polymers bonds from "philadelphia inquirer." >> hello, craig. can you tell us as precisely as you can plan and work disaster recovery centers will open on the ground in new jersey and elsewhere? >> even better for that. in partner with google crisis maps to give real-time as they been set up. we are to have recovery centers for previous disasters and then and you can click and see when they come out.
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they're starting to be in connecticut and we work with states of new york and new jersey and where they would like to get out. we'll probably start out with mobile sites. but until that's done, we also have teams on the ground going out into the neighborhoods and starting the initial fact check with people and making sure they have information registered an answer additional questions. recovery centers come on over the next couple of days. we'll send the information out as press releases. in partnership with google crisis maps come at a map real time recovery centers in crisis mounts that the information is that david. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> next question from peter landesk. >> hi, gentlemen. governor cuomo says a million meals and bottled water will be brought into hard-hit sections of new york, brooklyn and the rockaways. do you guys yet have a timetable
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for exactly when it's going to show up quite senators distribution centers being set up. how will that be handled? >> i'd have to defer back to the city. we'll probably have better disabilities. the timing of the tracks in windows distribution points out. that's been built in conjunction with unified team in the federal coordinating officer in new york. >> i want to have the red cross feeding offers with fema and the states and cities. so we don't operate unilaterally. we operate together. i remembered our operations are putting out into staten island, other communities you hear about in hoboken and others and pushing hundreds of thousands of meals. we get to the point where it the capacity to be serving a quarter million two half-million meals a
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day, but closely coordinated in terms of locations in the city, states and cities regions. >> next question from spencer ackerman. >> yes, can you update specifically with fema and u.s. army corps of engineers assets are being sent to alleviate impacts in new jersey, particularly the "jersey shore"? >> yeah, last night we had in cells and today were up to 70 installs as we start getting generators and. the other part is getting assessments to get the transit facilities back up and running. there's quite a bit of transportation impact, so we do that jointly with u.s. d.o.t. the other thing the president authorized at a skirt today is although there's been a lot of mutual aid to bring in more utility crews from surrounding areas as far south and west as
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california. those screws that can get in relatively fast have driven in. we still have equipment in teams on the west coast that the concern was still three to five days transit time to get them to the east coast. there's also concern that if they couldn't get back to their fire season when think it's going they would send the resources. so the president directed that we bring to bear dat resources aircraft. so there are teams and equipment that will be airlifted from california, west coast teams to support this response, but also understand that teams for our do nothing well before sandi hit. additional teams called from the midwest and the south, where it makes sense they can drive and faster. whether it makes sense to fly teams in come of the crew starts flying this afternoon. >> thank you, mr. chairman.
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>> next question from an adrenaline. >> hi, i'm wondering how the contracting process is going. i know some contracts are rhodium placed. this request for proposals for other types of aid. and also, this fema have enough money with a 3.6 billion, especially when the flood insurance fund is only authorized for 3.8 billion? >> all right. yes, we're contracting for more, but she have to go back to different agencies exercising preexisting pre-negotiating contracts. there will not be no-bid contracts. we used predetermined free bit processes. second of all, were not going to run out of money in the dri for response and it's a separate account for the flood insurance program. flood insurance is a separate account. look at projected flood claims they are and will work fairly closely with omb and appropriators on that fund. the drs is a separate account.
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it is strictly for response cause, not flood insurance claims payout. recess and determine if funds may be needed once we get into the damage assessments phase. as it is in the response phase, the drs continues response to the disaster with no limiting factors. >> operator, next question. >> paul jackson, bergen record. >> could you tell me whether the disaster expiration of the expanded to more counties in new jersey today? >> we added on to more counties this morning and continue to work with governor christie todd impacts. a lot of areas as power outages can be the primary issue. will further cannot establish homes. the president added on somerset.
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as they continue to work this, will do further assessments to determine what's going to prominently divide will be homes damaged or destroyed, not just power outages and will also be looking at recovery costs another assistance that have not been declared yet. >> thank you, mr. chairman. operator, next question. >> good morning. i came in like, so i may be repeating something someone else asked. i want to know about adding additional counties in new york and also an explanation from your side of governor cuomo's request for 100% federal share. what would that be 100% of this congressional action needed for that? >> right now we have the boroughs impacted. again, as they assess damages,
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candidates can be added on as one of the thing is concerned about was flooding inland. unfortunately that did not seem to be as bad to prepare for. right now the primary focus is certified strong term damages. as assessments continue prior to additional counties, will work those. 100% again this fema programs or reimbursement programs. these are funds the state has expanded to take it reimbursed for. standard cost share and disaster state federal officers shall not be less than 25% state and local. fema by policy would recommend it appropriate to be close to 90% across recovery assistance programs the federal share, 10% state and local shaer when you reach thresholds of about $131 per capita for state
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calculation. we do not currently have policy recommendations to go to 100% across all categories, although we make recommendations, and life-saving, life sustaining in the president took us to for transportation and direct federal missions of 100%. congress has traditionally been the need is greater than 90% and through congressional action and appropriations language has directed 100%. if you go back to hurricane katrina, congressional action directed hurricane katrina, rita and wilma in 2005 were directed to be 100% federally funded for recovery costs. >> thank you, mr. chairman. operator, next question. >> david silverberg, homeland security today. >> at administrator fugate, you've given us back some
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figures. i like to know how satisfied you are the operation now. is it according to expectation and needs? what needs to be done? where the gaps? >> i'm not happy and i'm not letting anyone think were doing to. he's got survivors up that don't care how much you have been staging. they don't care how many press releases issued. i don't know is can you help me get a place to stay? and many young men. i don't have his last name, but his name is nick. he's 15 years old. he's been in the wheelchair for several days. there almost flooded. there are renters. they needed help. sometimes the retail and is the only time you seem to get satisfaction was horrible to be registered and a place to stay. i'm not going to be satisfied
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until everyone that is housing assistance has been assistance. i'm not satisfied for resources in the hands of survivors and i'm not satisfied. see what a great illness can ask other. on the most impatient hard to please person the world when it comes to making sure survivors of the first and foremost about response activities. we have not kind to people that are hard to get into and today is the day that i've said it is imperative we are reaching people, to supply the reaching people. in any disaster, there's things that are going to happen if she have to deal with. i want them dealt with. you can't always anticipate and prevent everything. as problems arise i don't want them festering or lingering. >> operator, time for one more question. >> yes, good morning. this is a question for
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mr. shimanski. going back to the issue of the assistants are getting getting from your counterpart, from canada and mexico, i wonder if you could elaborate a little bit about the mexican allocation. are they a currently in u.s. soil? how many people? who's going to foot the bills for these people and what other states are they working on? >> i can answer a few of those, but certainly not all of them. i can tell you i believe right now we're looking at 15 to 20 from the mexican red cross come of the also evaluating whether there is a need for more. specialized skills with a cruise row hobbit rings to us include highly trained medical personnel, the cruise row hobbit
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provides medicine throughout the country. most of the ambulance services unlike in the u.s. are red cross. we get highly trained medical staff and we will use them and incorporate them into her own children, were always provide basic medical care for people who have made a sick medical needs. they also corsaro multilingual embassy staff in any place where spanish-speaking assistance is also required. i don't know the exact states. we are matching up the needs. it would likely be in places of higher level of special medical shelters. probably new jersey and new york would be the greatest likelihood i'm not sure. i can tell you once they get on our soil we take care of them here, much like when we're supporting them. in terms of transportation here in, we work collaboratively and
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so often that i think we probably cover each other's costs pretty unilaterally across the board with each operation. i can't give you specifics on that. >> all rights, everybody, we're going to get back to work. i've got one device to view. especially oaks in the field, you're going to see stuff we don't know about. i'm not asking you not to rate stories. i'm just asking you to get it to us so if we know there's a problem we can fix it. the other thing is the president continues to reinforce the bus through and get through any red tape slowing us down and that's why he directed his 100% funding on transportation and power to make sure there was nothing holding data. also encourage i can't hope that they haven't notified if they need help. that's 1861 fema. or go online at disaster
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assistance.gov. we party had several thousand people register online and that is also a mobile friendly webpage people are registering mobile. with over 5500 people last night and the number is climbing. disaster assistance.gov. if you see something that don't look right, let us know. i don't care if you could write stories about it. i want to know what people need help so they can fix it. thanks to everybody. >> thanks to everyone. that is today's call. please go to disaster assistance.gov if you know folks who want to register for assistance. also go to www.fema.gov to get the latest news from female. >> new jersey, where some of the damage happened. joining us, jon runyan, republican of new jersey. his district contains a lot of the "jersey shore." representative runyon, can you tell us about the damage in new
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jersey? >> i had the opportunity. thanks for having me on. i had the opportunity yesterday to walk around on the ground. i know the president and governor christie has seen it from the air. the two especially go out seaside heights and go north, i'm actually going to the long beach island, which is the southern part this afternoon, just to see the devastation. you're talking holmes pushed off the beaches. you're talking homes collapsed. when you're rocking around. i've spoke with people who have served times overseas in afghanistan and that is served time with katrina in new orleans and they said it doesn't look much different and i would agree with them. even just walking around and having it be dead silence and
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you hear natural gas coming out of the ground because of roque and means. we were still as of yesterday, still in search and rest in a come and try to make sure everybody is out of their house and save before they allow people to actually come back. so it's a very, very frustrating time. i can tell you kind of what you are talking about with clyde on the earlier called. you know, i had an opportunity last night to go to some shelters and talk to people and they were amazed at the amount of people willing to help and total strangers and from the time i was there, just random citizens walking into shelters in donating goods entering to help their fellow man. it is unfortunate takes a tragic
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situation like this to bring the best out of people. >> congressman runyon, what is the best the federal government in your view can district? >> the biggest thing is the president has been doing everything he needed to do a lot with the governor and giving the governor tools we need here in new jersey to get this process started. it's going to be a multiyear process to get us headed back in the right direction. i mean, it is not catastrophic of an event and it's not going to be an easy time to get out. we have it all and i think you've seen it. it is working together and making sure we are taking care in this specific case the new jersey and suspected. it's not a partisan issue. it's all coming together as citizens of new jersey and this
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great nation to really stand up for each other. you can see it across the board and is very refreshing and very comforting to see that happen. >> where did you write up a storm, sir? >> in my home. i actually live closer -- other than the other and the state closer to the delaware river, so closer to philadelphia. we got hit a little less, but we did get a lot of the same power outages because of the high wind and take entries down. >> congressman john runyon joining us. thank you for your time this morning. >> not a problem. thank you for having me on. >> congresswoman carolyn maloney, democrat from new york. tell us what happened. tell us what happened to your
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district or what kind of shape kind of shape is that it? >> it is the non-subtly devastating to new york in to my district in the region as a whole. wind and flooding caused the largest storm related outage. there's well over 200,000 people without power in lower manhattan they restored power to 2000 throughout new york, roughly 100,000 people in brooklyn and queens have no power, but they are working hard. we have the worst conditions ever in the 108th year public system. the tunnels under water, response has been extra area from the president and all of the secretaries.
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they are sending down over 200 pounds, generators to help remove the water, salt water from the subway system so they can ascertain the damage and start to brochure services. they are partial, small service, but the tunnels connecting manhattan and queens are still flooded. u.s. -- we've reported over 24 people dead. that is not an estimated 61 nationwide, two of the largest hospitals, bellevue and nyc medical center were evacuated. i too heard yesterday and entering bellevue today plus per lower manhattan. but they were talking during the dark night of the storm, they
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really saw courageous work of nurses and others at nyu medical. they were carrying out the other hospital. they're taking care of people hurting and fema has been coordinating the major disaster relief. there have been phone calls every day for the new york delegation and other elected on how fema is responding. there is a great need for food and water in lower manhattan and it's really eerie when you go below roughly 37 street. there's no lights, no traffic lights, no phone, nothing, no way to communicate. when you are down there, you can send an e-mail or make a phone call, the people are helping each other. people are directing traffic. stores are all closed and small businesses are afraid some of them will go out at business
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because they operate on a fragile business line and their dairy, stock in the restaurant at small stores in the delis otherwise messages going back. they are losing their total revenue. we been talking to the sba should come in and set up satellite offices with bridge loans another race to help some of these small businesses and react to the disaster. as i said, fema and others are coming in. the national guard is coming in in areas where people, particularly seniors and high-rises have no elevators, the nothing. we need to go door-to-door to make sure they are all right and give consistent they need.
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so all in all, it is the worst storm in the history of our great city, but the spirit people are united, determined and all the personnel for the federal workers to city workers, first responders, sirens going off all night. because the blast, my colleague, bob turner lost his home, totally burned to the ground along with many other new yorkers who lost their home. so we are doing the best we can. i believe the president toured new jersey yesterday and we are all trying to do everything we can to help people. >> representative maloney come is the spirit you described earlier reminiscent of olive 9/11? in a quite frankly it reminds me quite a bit of 9/11.
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our governor cuomo and mayor bloomberg are doing a great job. everyone is determined. but it's the same publics. , of everyone doing whatever they can to help someone else. earlier in the store and it was a police officer running down the street. i thought he was looking for criminals, so i stopped and talked to him. he said knowing the scene for a demented person missing. people are looking for children. some with alzheimer's are missing or trying to find them were trying to get food and ice tour centers. the rest of new york, i don't think i know anyone who's missed another family and within your it's almost impossible to live in lower manhattan without any of your city or communication
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services. so it is reminiscent of the spirit or the courage of new yorkers and really americans are the best on our back is up against the wall. what we need to help each other. >> congress is due to return on november 13. what action would you like the congress to take if any? >> harden me. >> commerce is due to return for lame-duck november 13. what action do like to see? >> the new york delegation is circling a letter initiated on emergency help and support to get the lifeblood of our city moving together. we can't travel. its total traffic logjam. without the 50s, the buses have been restored, but it's really a tremendous problem.
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we need to get our subway system back and running. the governor has a fixed land dollars loss in revenue by the disruption of business and disruption of commerce in the city. i am sure that there will be requests for emergency aid and the response. janet napolitano has been available to select all people in new york, the head of homeland defense and security, the head of fema. fugate has been on a conference call every single day on emergency response. ray lahood has been coordinating the transfer system, the fema escort aiding the overall risk of. i'm sure there will be requests
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for infrastructure for people. it is a disaster beyond the least and there has to be a commission to look at ways we can try to prevent this in the future. one of the problems is that a lot of the infrastructure was in the basement of buildings. for example, hospitals and mris come a electrical systems and phone systems in the basement. it is all destroyed with the salt water. the smile, the stench is almost unbelievable as a combination of this type of electric communication systems rotting. pumps are trying to push water out. phenom and the national guard and whether the federal government are moving 200
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generators to manhattan and brooklyn and queens to help back up the pumping system to get the water out of institutions and out of our communications network. we have over 700 miles of subway systems they need not to be inspect it after we remove the water and begin the repair of it. there has to be a total rethinking of how we build in the future. we certainly cannot have systems on the ground floor. has to be at the very least on the higher floors and there has to be other ways we can
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vermont state capitol, montpelier, saturday at an eastern on booktv on c-span 2 and sunday at 5:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span 3.
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>> now, a group of american diplomats and former ambassadors advised the next administration to focus its foreign policy efforts on asia. former ambassador to iraq, chris hill said political gridlock is hurting u.s. foreign policy object is an asian policy is a good place to rebuild bipartisanship. the discussion is just under two hours. >> thank you all for being here this afternoon and welcome to gaston on georgetown company country university. we've kind for a special conversation. a conversation between top diplomats past and present, each of whom has played a significant role over the past two decades with representatives from the administration of george h.w. bush to the current administration of barack obama, our guest speakers today offered their expertise and experience as they look back on their years of service and look forward to
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the future of u.s.-asia relations. we offer my gratitude to georgetown's asian studies program, our school foreign service and the korea economic institute who have partnered to bring together some of our country's most respected minds on foreign policy and asia. we are deeply grateful to dr. dr. victor cha and director of asian studies here at georgetown. dean carol lancaster dean of the foreign service and dr. abraham kim, the interim president of the korea economic institute her make in this event possible. we are also unsure what this representative of education and we think the department for its recognition of version studies program as title vi national resource center for east asia. it is fitting that we gather
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today for this conversation just days before the presidential election. the topic of our discussion will take on increasing importance for our president in the next four years. .. success, requires maintaining and advancing a bipartisan con consensus on the importance of the asia-pacific toward national interests, we seek to build upon
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a strong tradition of engagement by presidents and secretaries of state of both parties across many decades. it is the breadth and tenor of leadership. dip mootic work across many years in spanning both political parties that our panelists represent today. it's the work that georgetown has committed itself to pursuing through the expanding work of our asian studies program and several other programs across our campus that explore through teaching scholarship emersion and research the vibrant economic, cultural, and social life of asia. the only title vi national resource center located in the nation's capitol, we have the unique opportunity to connect our students with the ground-breaking research and hands on experience and policy planning and implementation.
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our commitment to advancing asian studies includes the certificate for undergraduate student. the masters of arts degree in asian study. student and faculty partnership and exchanges in the law asia program. in clinical and community medicine experiences for our fourth year medical student in china, the philippines and nepal. it's in this context that we are honored to host such distinguished panelists for conversation of great national and global importance. i want to thank our panelists for joining us this afternoon, and i'd like to offer my grad constitute again to all of you again for being here. it's my honor to introduce abraham kim of the korea economic institute and the cohost this afternoon. dr. kim has served as research manager of government services
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and principle preanalysts at the global consulting firm your asia group. dr. kim managed a grouch annalists in government research projects covering issues such as international trade, political stability in emerging market, and the global financial crisis. he's also worked to develop new systems to integrate social media and data visualization tools with social science analysis. his write ago peer in the asian "the wall street journal," foreign policy, he's been interviewed by major news organization around our world. it's my pleasure to welcome to the stage here dr. kim. [applause] thank you for your kind
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introduction. the curry economic institute is hon snored to be a cosponsor of the distinguished panel of the united states current and past assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs. i can think of no better partner than the edmund school of foreign services and georgetown university to share this unique platform to explore the future of the united states policies in the asia-pacific. i really i do do think that the 21st century will be seen as asia-pacific century. many of the growth will merge from the region and of course many of the toughest global challenges as well. the rise of china, the perspective of asian integration and the security problems on the korean peninsula to name a few. u.s. leadership and continuous engagement in the region will be critical in these and many more
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issues ahead. as a president of the economic institute, i thank the tremendous past contribution of the notable assistant secretary of state to u.s. korea relationship. more broadly, their tireless efforts to ensure security, stability, and prosperity in the asia-pacific region during the tenure. we look forward to your insights as you discuss about the future and thank you again to dean carol lancaster, president, and of course, georgetown university for cohosting this timely event. thank you very much. [applause] thank you for helping us to put together the event today. forging consensus u.s.-asia policy for the next
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administration. my name is victor i'm a professor here and directer of asian studies and what i'd like to do isly start with kurt campbell. who has been the assistant secretary of state for east asian affairs in 2009 for president obama. previously he was the ceo and cofounder of center for new american security and currently served as a group and chairman of the editorial board of the washington quarterly. he was a founder of asia a strategic advisory firm and senior vice president national security policy at csis. an associate professor of public policy and international
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relations a the the school of government and assistant director for -- dr. campbell has served in several capacity in government include pacific directer on the national security counsel staff, deputy special counsel for nafta and the white house and white house fellow at the department of treasury. for his service he received the department of defense metals for does tick wished push lib service. he served as officered in the u.s. navy on the joint chief of staff and chief chief of naval operations special intelligence unit. dr. campbell received his ba from the university of california san diego. certificate in music and political policy fry if the university of -- [inaudible] in soviet are man ya and doctorate in international relations from oxford university. she was a scholar there. to my immediate left is richard
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solomon the assistant sec tier of state for east asia affairs from 1989 to 1990 for president george h. w. bush. during which time he oversaw the growth in to a center of international conflict management able sis and applied programs. during the service in government he negotiated a peace treaty, the first united nations permanent five peacemaking agreement, had a leading role in the dialogue on nuclear issues between the united states and korea. helped to establish asia -- with japan monogo ya, and vietnam on important bilateral issues. in 1992, to 1993, dr. solomon serves as a u.s. ambassador to the fill philippines he coordinated the close sure of
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the -- dr. solomon previously served as director l policy planning at the department of state and senior staff member of the national security counsel in 1995 he was awarded the state department foreign affairs award for public service and he is received awards for policy initiative from the government of korea and tie land in 2005, he received the american political science association hubert h. hum fee career award for notable service. he started his career as a professor of legal service at the university of michigan and also serves as the head of the political science department. he holgtd a ph.d. of the specialization of chinese politics from m.i.t. to my far light is winston lawyered. he serves a a for president bill clinton. he mostly recented received a
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co-chairman of the oversea of the international rescue committee largest nonsectarian organization that helps refugees abroad and resettles them in the united states. he is at the long career of bipartisan service in the u.s. government, and special assistant to the national security adviser he accompanying henry on the secret visit to china and president nixon as well as subsequent trips by president ford and dr. kissinger. he serve as the u.s. ambassador in bay shinning under president reagan an bush. ambassador's key governmental signment were from 1973 to '77 in the defense and state department in the 9160s. in between the post he helped and headed a variety of private organizations related to international affairs. he was president of the counsel on foreign relations. as well as chairman of the
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national endowment for democracy and chairman of the carnegie on america in the new world. ambassador lord earned a ba from yale and a ma from fletcher. he received honorary degrees from the state department and the defense department outstanding performance award. to my far left is christopher hill. christopher hill served as assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs from 2005 to 2009 for president george w. bush and president obama. he's dean of the justice school of international studies a denver university. ambassador hill is career member of the foreign service. prior amoinment include u.s. ambassador to iraq from 2009 to 2010 and u.s. ambassador to public of korea. on february 1, 2005, he was named as head of the u.s. delegation to the sixth party talks on the north korea nuclear
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issue. previously ambassador hill served as u.s. ambassador to poland from 2000 to 2004 u.s. ambassador to republican mass done ya from 'the 96 to '99 and special envoy from '98 to 99. he serves a special assistant to the president and senior directer for southeast european affairs on the national security counsel. ambassador hill received a state department distinguished service award for the contribution as a negotiate the team in the boss bosnia peace settlement and was a recipient for the work on the crisis. prior to joining the form service ambassador hill serve as a peace corp. volunteer. he graduated from college with a ba in economics and received a master degree from the navel war college in 1994. ladies and gentlemen, i would like to take a moment to recognize these gentlemen for the work they have done for the
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united states in asia and around the world. if we could give them a round of applause. [applause] >> so we're going have a little bit of conversation about different issues in asia, and start with a few questions. we will then go to the audience later on in the hour to entertain your questions as well. so gentleman, the first question i would like to start we is a question about asia as strategic priority. and the question i would ask you is as a assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs, each of you were among our country's highest ranking policy makers on asia. and so in retrospect, i would ask what what was your biggest challenge aside from the brutal travel schedule? what was your biggest challenge
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in making policy and in particular how did your president view asia as a strategic priority? maybe we can start with kurt. >> first of all, thank you, victor, thank you to georgetown, and colleagues and friends. i see so many people around the audience honoring us for being here. it's great to be with such distinguished gathering and friends. thank you, victor. look, i think all of us face myriad challenges in the job. i would list a couple of. i think there was a broad recognition at the beginning of the obama administration when chris was initially serving that the view was that we were perhaps overinvested in terms of our engagement in the middle east and south asia. they were important, they were necessary, but that we needed to diversify and perhaps focus more of our time and attention on
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what would become what i think all of us argue the main primary focus of diplomacy in the 21st century. now it is sometimes said by a few that were back in asia and others have said we have never left. they're both true, and in certain respects they are both false. in fact for us to be successful in asia, reto do much more over a longer sustained period. like very much the way you started, victor, focusing bipartisan. it is not just important during the e electrical seasons. it's important always. making sure there's a sustained commitment to stronger engagement will be probably the essential future -- feature of our success going forward. secondly, it's the case we have been here in the asia-pacific region. we have to build on the foundation we have established
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over decades to ensure that we are appropriately engaged on multilateral affairs on our critical by lateral security partnership and an the key relations with big states in asia like china, india, indonesia. so the challenges are enormous, frankly, the strong leadership from the white house, secretary clinton, we have been able to do a lot, and i think build on some remarkable achievement through the previous administration including the opening to india. i would say. those are the opportunity. ierpically, for me, the biggest challenge are the personal ones. i have a wife who is also a senior administration official and we have young children and trying to balance figuring how how to be in certain places when you have, you know, pressing either international or
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domestic, you know, kind of family business is remarkably difficult. and, you know, there's the let down when you're not there in certain things or the embarrassment when you're diplomatic and on the phone, hears your daughter screaming at the top of heifer lungs as you're trying to -- i'm not. one screaming, my it's my daughter. [laughter] a lot it is happened the other way around. so i would say, you know, it's been a remarkable as you're going through each of our resumes and experiences it's been an incredible ride. it's a wonderful thing inspect is one of the jobs that i think only if few of us understand when you go out in the region, you are the guy you're able to do a lot of stuff in a way that perhaps in washington you can't. but it's ban great honor. it's been a wonderful set of
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opportunities. it is daunting, the constant challenge, the pull of different time zones, but overall, i think the opportunity and the excitement has outweighed the burdens. >> first of all, victor, you put together a terrific exercise, and my fading brain cells require me to start reading some of the books and papers that were part of my experience. i was confirmed as assistant secretary of state one week after ted and the challenge of the george hw bush administration was the effort to salvage what had been a and still was viewed as a relationship of tremendous strategic value to the united states. there's some interesting dynamic
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right after ted edmund, of course, various officials were making comments, there was one slight misstatement out of the state department about ending exchanges with china, which knead look like it was going to last forever. in fact it was designed as a short term comment. but produced a brew ha-ha and lead to the china policy become managed out of the white house. and as secretary of state baker used to like to say, the china desk officer was the guy in the white house. as you may remember, president bush made his first trip abroad after the election, to china, he served there as head lie yai son officer. it was a personal relationship to him and he wanted to try to cope it alive despite the tremendous domestic and international uproar after ted edmund. what it lead to, first, as you
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may recall a secret trip that national security adviser brett and deputy sec fair larry undertook a few weeks after ted ed mobbed and a few months after that there was an open trip. those were an effort to engage denise depg deaning and others to stabilize the relationship produced a tremendous backlash, and in the way the television plays that, you will again remember the image of brent hosting a man who did not evoke very warm and fussy feelings in the united states and lead to greater pressure on the relationship. so from my point of view as your 0 bit sounded introduction
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pointed out. i was trained in chinese affair. i thought i was going to be out of the china business. again, in the ironic ways that public service works, i probably did the most useful things that i did in my career in government apart from contributing some poetry to president nixon's speeches and presentations in china by negotiates several key agreement with the chinese through the united nations security counsel. the effort to normalize or end the conflict over cambodia had begun before the ted incident and the five permanent member of the security council which the united states is one had already begun renegotiating process and so for two years, i worked with all four other members of the security counsel the chinese very much being one, and we
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ended up producing probably the one instance where all members of the permanent members of the security counsel actually produced a peace agreement. so that was a very unexpected an gratifying outcome. the other interesting thing, secretary baker, fell in lo with monogoal ya. maybe as a way -- he was traveling around china when the relationship was frozen. and on august 1st, 1990, we were in baa tar initially a trade agreement and trying to build on the relationship that just opened up in the circumstance with the soviet union collapsed. during the middle of the negotiation word came that saddam hussein had invaded kuwait. we hopped on a plane breaking off the diplomacy we flew to
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moscow where president bush was talking to soviet leaders, and i was then instructed to fly back to bay bay jinx and gain the support for the chinese security counsel resolution supporting an intervention in support of kuwait. flight first class flights are something less than first class, but of all the traveling that one does when you serve the region as asia turned out to be worthwhile. the real challenge of my period as assistant secretary was trying to salvage this relationship. and looking back, 1989, you could say was the end of the beginning. the beginning being the nixon breakthrough, but ted edmund having so seriously wounded the
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relationship that put level of distrust that we lived with today in the relations with china was really derivative of the ted edmund incident. so beginning of the end hopefully it was only the end of the beginning, and maybe we'll see this relationship live through again some troubled waters. thank you. >> thank you. >> the hardest event was getting him from new york. thank you for joining us. biggest challenges. what do you remember the most? >> first footnote, dick mentioned he was in monogoal ya. three years later i was there assistant secretary riding on camel in the desert in february. and it was still managed to cut short [inaudible] any event. i'm delighted to be here.
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i'm glad sandy did keep me away and to be with colleagues with whom i've shared many professional and personal experiences and of course -- [inaudible] a quick note on the role of assistant secretary of state. i don't know how my colleagues feel, of all the jobs i had i thought it was the most demanding and challenges. the most traumatic was being with henry kissinger and the most fun was being ambassador. the most grueling was assistant secretary. i have both a macro and microchallenges. the -- we want to get on to other questions question come back to that. that was quite a challenge during my time in officer. the mark row one is shared by all of us to get the attention for the region it deserves.
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every region assistant secretary trying to do that from a stand point but in our case, at least in the last two died, in fact, it's important as virtue of being true. it wasn't just approachial. i'm going to be boring when we talk about the present administration's politician. i'm a supporter what they've been doing. i stay behind the back. i'm not looking for a job. they done a fabulous job. they had the advantage of becoming crystal clare the importance of asia both in economic and security terms. i was determined when i came in 1993 to overcome the american foreign policy who was justified and of course, preoccupation with other areas including the middle east because i did feel it was a crucial area for american national interest. so my conformation statement
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making uneasy the assistant secretary for congressional relationship. you -- i sent out a ten-point plan. i call it searching for a pacific community. i was pushing the envelope in policy even before i was con official of firmed. i was determined from the beginning to try to raise the profile of the region. i said in my statement that this was the early 90s no region is more important and i said in the 21st century no region would be as important. we were lucky the calendar. we came in '93 the g7 meeting in tokyo. the president's first overseas trip was to japan we had in korea and major pronouncement about the strategy and commitment to the region. we also a host to apeck, the regional organizational committee and seattle. we succeeded from listing from the minister level to the presidential level. we did that not only to show the
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importance of the region and economics and regional cooperations, but i figured if you had a meeting every year which we would, it meant the president had to go to asia every year. secretary of state and treasury would have go. we also invigorated regional security architect the region -- we brought in china, india, russia. i'm not the prime minister and the secretary of state would have go two or three times a year. we articulated we're going main tape the force level. we got off to a good start, but i can only say that we partially succeeded in the elevating the asia. the dynamism of the economy it was not as clear as it is today. and partly because the secretary of the president kept getting dragged back in to other issues. you asked about president's view. he thought asia was important.
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he was obviously an economic animal and realized the important of the trade and so on. but the first [inaudible] focused on the domestic economy which, by the way, a single most important thing you can do for the foreign policy. above all today. so and christopher spent a lot of time in asia went out secretary christopher to the region but he often would get -- bosnia crisis, we had somalia and haiti and other crisis and the middle east, and a lot we raised property file, indon't think we were able to succeed as certainly kurt succeeded with the great admiration. i'll make one final comment in brief on the china roller coaster. we had the experience. and in it affected me personally. in '93 without getting in to detail of the time. i negotiated with the leader of
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the house and the senate a deal to link mfn trade of human rights very moderate deal that was doableble in my view. i was so successful at the time -- i that's i became a hero and toward the end of the '93 together with some other accomplishments i was one of the last two remaining candidates to be deputy secretary of state. stewart was picked and was a per terrific choice. flash forward six months. the deal fell apart partly because of clinton's part. undercut the deal we had done, the chinese hold disarray and the government no incentive to make movement on modest conditions we set forth and the president didn't reign in the cabinet. it was unfortunate. so when the deal fell apart, i

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